To illustrate and provide background for the present method and apparatus, the patent application titled “Apparatus and Method for Creating Literary Macramés”, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/361,439, by the present inventor, is incorporated herein by reference. A literary macramé, also called here an ‘ELM’, or electronic literary macramé, is a form of text offering readers advantages over other forms of literature in referencing and tracing connections.
To provide further background and support for the present method and apparatus, the patent application titled “The Knowledge Transfer Tool: An Apparatus And Method For Knowledge Transfer”, International Application No. PCT/US2007/062801, also by the present inventor, is also incorporated herein by reference. The Knowledge Transfer Tool, also called here a ‘KTT’, combines ELM characteristics and capabilities with rule-based expert system and programmed-instruction components to allow authors to produce immersive learning programs in literary and textbook forms on electronic media.
To provide context for ongoing developments relating to the present method and apparatus, the patent applications titled “Method And Apparatus For Electronic Literary Macramé Component Referencing”, “Method And Apparatus For Electronic Literary Macramé Business Development”, and “Method For Presenting Electronic Literary Macramés On Handheld Computer Systems”, also by the present inventor, are additionally incorporated herein by reference.
A digital watermark is a distinctive identifying pattern or encoding applied to an electronic file or work to distinguish one copy, version, or source of the work from another. Effective digital watermarks have the additional properties that they are: 1) sufficiently unobtrusive to present no distraction or obstacle to the target audience of the work, and 2) sufficiently difficult to remove from the work that the effort needed for removal outweighs the advantages of that removal.
Literary works published or read in electronic form are easy to copy. The ease of copying presents an obstacle to an author or publisher who wishes to profit from publishing a work electronically. Many copy-protection schemes are well-known in the art of electronic publishing, but with sufficient time and resources, all can be broken. Those who wish to profit from the sale or presentation of electronic literary works must find ways of discouraging copyright violation while avoiding the kinds of fiascos which have plagued vendors using copy-protection tools. The rootkit scandal perpetrated by a copy-protection software supplier on behalf of Sony Corporation is a salient case.
Digital watermarks are now a conventional technology, installed in many forms in many types of copyrightable electronic works, and provided by numerous vendors. They constitute a limited form of copy protection, in that their presence can identify copies or sets of copies of a literary work. If a copy containing a digital watermark is furnished by a publisher to a buyer, the contents of that copy's watermark may be used to associate the copy with the buyer, so that additional copies appearing with the same watermark may be considered illegal copies originated from the buyers copy. The buyer may then be held accountable for the copyright violation.
Despite measures taken to prevent removal, a digital watermark may be removed from an electronic literary work, rendering the work untraceable to a buyer. Those wishing to benefit from the limited copyright protection afforded by digital watermarks would benefit from an invention that reduces the attractiveness of removal of the digital watermark.